


this is you (according to me)

by grayintogreen



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: But we know, Gen, Pre-Series, adelle is a mama bear and doesn't want anyone to know, the origin of topher's birthday present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 00:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20769482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayintogreen/pseuds/grayintogreen
Summary: "I've given you a gift, Mr. Brink. Tell no one."And with that, Adelle begins a yearly tradition. It's just one day, after all.





	this is you (according to me)

Topher Brink has never, in twenty-four years, had a girlfriend.

(Or a boyfriend, but that's because he had never wanted one, and that only needed to be said, because the first question someone undoubtedly asks when they find out the first bit of information requires that answer, so he liked to just nip that bit of aggravation in the bud as soon as possible.)

The pathetic part, the part that made this less a laughing matter and more a matter that involved blank stares and ellipsing (could people actually ellipse or was that just a literary thing?), was that when you get down to the bare bones of it? He had never actually had a _friend_. He had passing acquaintances, people who appreciated his research, people who didn't appreciate his research but liked watching him because it had all the fun of watching a train wreck without the fire and blood (direct quote- he still didn't understand it), and people who... Tolerated him in the way someone tolerates a persistent rash that happens to be consistently perky (except Topher wouldn't use perky and most of the people who would describe him thus probably wouldn't either- to his face, anyway).

Adelle DeWitt figured this out within fifteen minutes of meeting him, and then decided to do something about it roughly six months after he was hired.

~*~

He stepped into her office about a week before his twenty-fourth birthday, thinking he'd done something very, very bad somewhere. Some imprint went horrendously wrong and one of the Actives was tearing down the backstreets of LA, gunning down civilians, and his genius would be compromised. In another six months, he'd believe that he could do no wrong with any imprint, but one brilliant breakthrough and six months of success meant that he was due for an epic fuck-up somewhere and he was just waiting for it, so he could fix it and move on, his work (mostly) uncompromised. People are judged just as much on their failures and how they deal with them as they do their successes, after all- it would be a learning experience... Albeit one that was vaguely terrifying, if only because De Witt was vaguely terrifying.

"You're not in any trouble, Mr. Brink," DeWitt murmured the moment he was in the room.

"It's terrifying that you knew I was thinking that," he replied. DeWitt didn't look up from her paperwork.

"Not really. You just have that look about you."

Topher didn't spend too much time wondering if that meant he just looked perpetually guilty or like a ball of nerves and refrained from saying that he could probably come back in with more confidence, but he was still in that _I'm often too exuberant for my own good, and should tone that down a tiny bit for the first year, maybe_ stage of work transition.

"So..." He drawled, waving his hands in a _go on_ gesture.

"So," DeWitt repeated. "I usually allow employees of the house to take time off for... Specific holidays, if they so choose. You haven't requested any time off."

Topher arched an eyebrow and chuckled in a slightly nervous manner, "You can't run the Dollhouse without me."

"I most certainly can. I did it seven months ago."

"Yeah. And your productivity was..." He whistled and produced a serious of gestures with his hands meant to represent a plane crash... Or something vaguely similar. "The new upgrades? I'm the only one who knows how to work them."

DeWitt eyed him. Cats probably eye fish in tanks the exact same way. "So you've made yourself indispensable."

She could have said _you've committed vile treason and I wish to have you killed_ and probably would have said it in the same tone. "I... Is that a... Bad thing?" He choked out, his voice rising slightly.

Either there was some horrible, sick part of Adelle DeWitt that loved the Scary British Woman act and enjoyed putting fear into the hearts or her employees or she was just really, really that intimidating without realizing it. ....It might have been both. "No," she said, blinking at him, like she couldn't possibly think why he seemed to think she was going to eat his liver with fava beans and a nice chianti. "I just prefer my employees to be healthy, for a certain degree of health. You didn't take Christmas off. The house wasn't even active over the holidays."

"I don't like my parents," Topher supplied, which was true enough. He couldn't really tell them that he didn't become a fancy brain surgeon like they were hoping, because actually cutting people open was squicky to him, and not having anything of value to say to them didn't help much either. Plus, he was pretty sure they were divorced now.... When _was_ the last time he talked to them?

"Do you ever leave the Dollhouse, Mr. Brink?" There might have been something before that, but Topher completely blanked on it when he zoned out. He stammered, trying to bring his brain back to the actual subject, and then just started nodding slowly, like that would somehow make him seem confident in his answer somehow.

"Sometimes! I like to make sure the sun still exists... And if there are still trees." The slow nod came to a halt, because that was clearly not the best response to that question. It was also mostly sarcastic, which was doing him no favors.

DeWitt shut the folder she was still occasionally glancing over while he found new and inventive ways to stick his foot in his mouth. "I'm going to be frank, Mr. Brink, and ask you this question. Do you have any friends outside of this facility at all?"

"Nooo?" Topher drawled, unsure of why it sounded like a question. For some reason this conversation felt like the most awkward interrogation session ever. "...Is... _That_ a bad thing?"

She had started moving and Topher sank into his chair like a prey animal lying low to keep an aerial predator from picking up on it. She just went straight for the decanter in the back and never gave him a second look, answering his question with her back turned and her eyes on the whiskey. "Well, you're not a security risk."

"Yay!" Topher's glee was halted by a sudden realization. "...Was that up for debate?"

"No." DeWitt crossed back to her desk with a tumbler in one hand, and picked up her phone with the other, pressing a single button. "Which of the Actives are free at the end of the week?" She asked the person on the end of the line, pausing as, presumably, they listed them all off. To Topher, she asked, "How do you feel about Tango?"

"...She's... Pretty?" Topher shrugged, growing steadily more confused by this entire conversation than he cared to admit.

"Keep Tango free. Mr. Brink will need to run a diagnostic on her on the 24th." She hung up the phone.

Topher just stared. "I... Will?"

DeWitt stared back. He swore he almost saw a glint of humor in her eyes, but maybe he just imagined it. "I've given you a gift, Mr. Brink. Tell no one."

~*~

Topher, being a genius and all, figured it out pretty quickly. When Tango's handler handed her off to him for what he called an "anterior insular cortex diagnostic," he was, in all actuality, supposed to give her whatever imprint he wanted. He had control over an Active that could be specifically tailored for what he wanted... As a birthday present.

...And either DeWitt trusted him, expected that he wouldn't do anything creepy, or was watching him like a hawk.

He went with the former, but it was probably the latter. Or both. Probably both.

He came up with the imprint a couple of days earlier after some painstaking edits, several additions, and a lot of late nights at his computer. He probably couldn't have made it any more perfect if he tried, but he did try. A lot. And what he got was nothing short of spectacular.

Tango popped out of the chair the minute she could get away and scrambled over to him, grabbing a large hunk of his shirt and pulling his face so desperately close to hers that their noses touched.

"Tell me. You have. Pizza. I have ravenous werewolf hunger and I cannot shamelessly tear into the _Star Wars_ prequels on an empty stomach."


End file.
